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<p>The Department informed Local Authorities and academy trusts of the republished
National Funding Formula (NFF) on 6 October 2023, alongside the publication of the
corrected NFF allocations.</p><p>The Permanent Secretary has taken full responsibility
for the error made by officials and has written to both the Secretary of State and
the Education Select Committee to apologise. The Secretary of State has asked the
Permanent Secretary to conduct an independent and external review of the quality assurance
process surrounding the calculation of the NFF.</p><p>The Department has already held
a series of discussions with Local Authorities and school representatives to discuss
the operational implications of the error. The Department is continuing to work closely
with school stakeholders to communicate this change and support schools to manage
their budgets.</p><p>The Government is continuing to deliver, in full, the total level
of core funding for mainstreams schools and high needs that has been promised. It
will remain over £59.6 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. This is the highest
ever funding for schools in our history in real terms per pupil.</p><p>Schools have
not yet received their 2024/25 funding, so the correction of this error does not mean
adjusting any funding that schools have already received. The NFF allocations published
by the Department are notional. These figures are subject to change based on the October
census, which was collected on 5 October 2023. Local authorities’ final allocations
will be published in December as part of their Dedicated Schools Grant and schools
are not provided their definitive budgets until the following calendar year: typically
in February for maintained schools and March for academies.</p>
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